How to stop thumb sucking

[morgan78]

Hi
My dentist has told us that our DS needs to stop sucking his thumb as he is developing teeth alignment problems already.
Does anyone have any suggestions how i can do this without putting sour/hot stuff on the thumb and do i really need to worry about this now Alex is 26 months old and i wasn't going to push him to stop until he was older but obviously dont want him to have permanent damage to his teeth/jaw.
thanks

[Claire]

How bad are they? My DD has sucked her thumb since she was 6 months old and in our case her teeth look fine. I do remember being told that if you don't draw much attention to the thumb sucking most children would stop around 5 years of age. So that's what I'm going with.

I'm very much into oral hygiene and spoke to my dentist whom said he didn't need to see DD until she was ready for school so that suits me too.

How often does your child suck his thumb? DD tends to do it when she's tired or as she's falling asleep. If he does it more than that maybe you could use a star chart or a reward system?

[morgan78]

Hi Claire - so weird as i'm Claire too - good to see it's spelt properly.

Anyway he has an overbite which seems to be a little more noticeable that it was 6 months ago. He sucks his thumb when he is tired, upset, going to sleep, watching ABC cartoons & whenever he is getting bored. We have tried the star chart with rewards but he doesn't seem to be aware that his thumb is going in his mouth so it was hard to give him stars as we would remind him he would take it out, give him a star and then it would go back in. Not sure if we were doing this right tho.
Our Dentist wanted to see him at 2 and then every 6 months - tho i wonder at this as it is $55 a visit (for 2 mins ).
I would like to leave it as im sure he will give it up when he is ready but i don't really want the expense of braces down the track.

[Olive]

im a dental nurse and my DD sucks her thumb!!, to be honest i wouldnt worry til he's 5 or 6 yrs! at this age teeth will reposition them selves, its when the adult teeth come through that you need to worry a bit. ive also read that the more you try to stop it the more they suck it!

[doulamamma]

i was just going to post what AJP posted - it only becomes an issue once the adult teeth come in. My DS also sucks his thumb when tired, sleepy etc., and i dont plan on encouraging him to stop till then. Saying that though, i do have a neice who is 8 and sucks her thumb when tired, upset, and has terrible teeth (and i mean a terrible bite, buck teeth and pushed up - not a good look), they tried to stop her when it was becoming more and more noticeable, but she hasn't stopped.. so its definitely important stop at some stage if you dont want that.
GL (and just to throw my 2c in - i think your dentist is taking you for a ride - be it money or just wanting to get into DS mouth and do some work - harsh maybe, but, really who takes their 2yr to the dentist and is told he needs major work, its thumb sucking we're tolking about)

[MantaRay]

Morgan, I was worried about this with DS2 also, but the MCHN and the dentist both said not to worry. They also both said that the more you try to stop it, the worse you'll make it, so just let him be, he is more likely than not going to stop before he does any harm anyway.

Maybe you should see another dentist and get another opinion?

[morgan78]

Thanks everyone for your advice/thoughts.
It has reinforced mine that i can leave it alone and not worry about it for a couple more years yets.

Thanks again

[ShootingStar]

You can get stuff you put on their thumbs and fingers that tastes terrible, from the chemist. If you cant find that, theres also the stuff you paint on nails to stop kids biting them and that stuff works well too.